Finding Time
by Caporal
Summary: In 1936, Pestilence retired, muttering about penicillin. This is what happened next. A chronicle of the twentieth century antics of the Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. Look out: there's a sweeping romance between DEATH and Pestilence ahead.


**Title:** Finding Time

**Pairing:** DEATH/Pestilence with a side of Famine/Pollution.

**Warnings:** You can handle it.

**Notes:** This was inspired by a challenge to write badfic, and was going to have a lot of angsty!DEATH and silly cliches. Then it evolved. So here's a nice little romantic epic with a bit of silly angst hanging on by its fingernails.

* * *

**Finding Time**

In 1936, Pestilence retired, muttering about penicillin. Pollution, who'd been wandering about enjoying the effects of the Industrial Revolution and anticipating the look on humanity's collective face when it realized exactly what it had been doing, took his place.

DEATH didn't care one way or the other for the new boy. He didn't resent him. The machinery he'd had a hand in increased his workload a little, but so did just about everything these days. People loved living dangerously, but they'd never really seemed to get the hang of the _living_ part. But that's beside the point. What DEATH did care about was the fact that Pestilence was leaving.

In 1939, DEATH ran into War in London. I THOUGHT YOU'D BE ON THE CONTINENT, he said.

'Huh. That's hardly a conflict. That's target practice. Now when I'm done here,' she said proudly, '_That' _will be a war. The last one will have been a_ playground_ next to this.'

THAT WAS QUICK... HAVE YOU BEEN INTO THE SUGAR RECENTLY?

'Don't joke, you're no good at it.' she said absently, absorbed in changing the polite wording of a particularly important ambassadorial dispatch. 'They got spoiled in the nineteenth century. I'm going to make the twentieth one to _remember_.' She smiled the way things with very sharp teeth smile just before they use them.

RIGHT. DEATH stalked off then, too reminded of War's last project. Those had been a good few years. Just like the old days, only on a bigger scale. That and the Spanish flu had been Pestilence's last great achievement before finally giving up, the fever of his energy broken, as it were.

It was Pollution who stalked this war, as Pestilence had the last. Pollution who made sure half the bombs dropped on London never went off, lying in wait for a hapless disposal expert or unfortunate civilian; who decided he'd stumbled upon a very good thing when the first oil tanker was sunk in the Mediterranean, and who turned up in Japan in 1945, looking far too pleased with himself.

DEATH was the littlest bit disheveled, having had an intensely busy day. You couldn't tell from the cowl, though. CLEVER, he remarked to the pale boy sitting on a crate.

'Oh, _I_ didn't do this,' said Pollution smugly. 'They did. I hardly had to encourage them at _all_. You know the going's good when they're this glad to do your job for you.'

DEATH didn't know. His job got done eventually whether or not people helped him along.

Pollution basked in the ruin. "It's not just the immediate consequences, either,' he was saying. 'The long-term effects will be _tremendous_. The ecology may never be the same.' He looked shrewdly at DEATH for a minute. 'They'll be terminally ill here for _generations'_

RIGHT. He pondered this. And grinned.°

WELL. SEE YOU AROUND. He strode off towards one of the more woefully understaffed emergency wards.

Pollution waved slightly, a small smile on his face, and went back to basking.

Thirteen years later, DEATH finally paid a visit to Pestilence. The retired Horseman was looking weak and altogether too healthy: he was recovering from typhus, which was a pretty bad sign. DEATH found him living in a filthy flat in Moscow, trying fairly unsuccessfully to keep one of the various molds in his refrigerator from producing penicillin.

He looked up brightly at DEATH's entrance, and coughed pleasantly. DEATH fidgeted.

HI PEST. I, ER, HAPPENED TO BE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. THOUGHT I'D DROP IN.

Pestilence beamed, and felt something in his lungs rattle a bit. 'It's lovely to see you, old chap' he said. He breathed experimentally, and was pleased to find himself rasping. 'I think you're killing my immune system' he said, pleased.

YOU'VE GOT ONE? asked DEATH, concerned. THAT _IS _BAD. HOW ARE YOU?

'Never felt better.' he replied gloomily.

DEATH crossed to the open refrigerator and poked a mold experimentally. A burgeoning penicillic civilization was surprised to find itself completely wiped out, dead of entirely natural, if sudden, causes.

'They're too damned _clean_ these days,' Pestilence was complaining. 'Covering their mouths when they cough, and washing their hands and _everything_.'

In an awkward attempt to comfort Pestilence, DEATH said THEY'RE STILL GETTING SICK. AND THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS ARE TERRIBLY DISORGANIZED.

'Of course they're still getting sick. But they've figured out how to fight it now.'

I KNOW A VILLIAGE WHERE THEY'VE GOT THE PLAGUE. YOU COULD STAND TO GO OUT IN THE COLD.

'Ah, plague. That was my best. They thought it signaled the Big One, you know. Sent half of Europe straight to you. And now? There's a hundred cases a year, and they survive it half the time! The Great Mortality rooted out all the weak immune systems. That's what the big problem is, you know. Immunity. Everyone's got a stronger constitution these days.'

Pestilence was absolutely miserable. Mostly it was because he was experimenting with manic depression, but DEATH still felt for him.

NOT IN THIRD-WORLD COUNTRIES THEY DON'T.

'I know. They're my last hope, really. I'm trying to contract tuberculosis up here, then I'm off to the tropics.'

WELL. GOOD LUCK. I GUESS I'D BETTER BE GOING. WOULDN'T WANT TO CURE YOU WITH MY GOOD COMPANY AND MORAL SUPPORT OR ANYTHING.

'Don't go!' cried Pestilence. 'I... can exert myself playing the gracious host when I ought to be in bed. Would you like a cup of tea?'

AS LONG AS YOU'RE SURE I'M NOT MAKING YOU BETTER, I'D LOVE ONE.

'Great,' said Pestilence, and rummaged in a cabinet for a teabag. DEATH leaned in a corner, watching as Pestilence brought a pot of water almost, but not quite, to a boil (he'd never been keen on boiling water: it tended to kill all sorts of nice bacteria), and dropped the bag of somewhat stale leaves in an unwashed cup. 'Three sugars?'

DEATH smiled. YOU REMEMBERED. YES, PLEASE.

Pestilence found three crumbling sugar cubes and stirred them in with his finger. The tea turned an odd greenish shade, and flecks of something that wasn't tea leaves floated in it.

DEATH took a sip, and grimaced appreciatively. IT'S TOXIC IN AT LEAST FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS. YOU KNOW, FAMINE WOULD LOVE THIS.

Pestilence grinned, showing blackened teeth. 'He does. I'm glad _you_ liked it.'

LIKE, DEATH corrected absently, studying one of the more lethal flecks.

'I knew that.'

YOU DO NOW, ANYWAY.

A while later, around 1961, DEATH privately admitted the he missed Pestilence desperately. But the old boy seemed to be perfecting manic depression, and always insisted his time was past, just let Pollution handle it.

Sometime in the mid-70's, DEATH and Famine literally ran into each other in Africa. A doctor as always, Famine was hurrying along just too slowly to get insulin to a diabetic child in time. Someone had given her a donut, though how a donut had come to be there was beyond everyone. DEATH, as always, was working. He left the tent just as Famine entered it, or tried to.

HELLO, he said, picking himself up with dignity. KEEPING BUSY?

'Of course.' Famine looked around proudly. 'I think I'll be moving on soon, though.'

OH. ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR?

'America, I think. They need me over there. This,' he continued, gesturing in the vague direction of the entire continent, ' will pretty well support itself for a while yet. And I saw Pestilence poking around recently. I think he may finally be considering getting back in business.'

AH, said DEATH. IT'LL BE GOOD FOR HIM.

'Yeah,' said Famine. 'Thought you might be interested. You always liked him.'

STILL DO.

'Of course.' Famine hesitated. 'You don't... hold it against Pollution, do you? I've, er, seen him around a bit. Nice boy.'

NOT AT ALL. (DEATH is nothing if not fair.) HE'S A CLEVER ONE.

'Oh, good.' said Famine.

DEATH quirked an eyebrow, though you couldn't see it under the cowl. He might have pressed the matter, but at that very moment, the camp suddenly rang with terrible, tragic tidings.

"The King is dead!"

NO HE'S NOT, said DEATH bemusedly.

A passing nurse looked at him, red-eyed. 'I don't believe it either,' she wailed. 'He _can't_ be gone!'

HE ISN'T, said DEATH to no one in particular. REALLY. TRUST ME ON THIS.

'Well,' said Famine, 'I'll keep an eye out for him when I get over there.'

Soho, 1984. DEATH lounged on a bar stool in a smoky club where an interesting fight was due to break out in the wee hours. A particularly distinctive crinkle of a falling candy bar wrapper told him he had company.

'Hi.' said Pollution. 'Fancy seeing you here. Although, I doubt _you're_ taking a night off.'

NO. YOU ARE?

'Yeah. I just got back from India. I'm taking a few days off before I go on. To America, maybe.' He got a slightly wistful look on his face, but then, he usually did.

FROM ALL I HEAR, THEY'RE DOING YOUR JOB PRETTY WELL WITHOUT YOU.

Pollution laughed. 'They can always stand to have me around.' He took a drag on his cigarette, which was more noxious than most. He blew a cloud of smoke at DEATH's cowl, in the direction he thought his face most likely to be. DEATH didn't cough, though nearly everyone else within a ten-foot radius did. Pollution grinned. 'Secondhand smoke. Wonderful thing.'

IT KEEPS ME BUSY, I'LL GIVE IT THAT, said DEATH, not bothering to wave away the wreath of dark smoke about his head.

Pollution grinned again -he was eerily cheerful tonight- and disappeared into the crowd.

Some time later, that cheerful aura and noxious smoke were back. 'Still here? You ought to be out enjoying yourself.'

DEATH, lost in thought, didn't turn around. YOU'RE ENJOYING YOURSELF ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US, POLL.

Behind him, someone affronted choked on their cigarette. 'I'm not him!'

DEATH blanched, though you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, and spun the stool around too forcefully. I'M SO SORRY.

'You'd think after six thousand years he'd know my voice,' Pestilence remarked. 'Honestly. There's a difference between, y'know, throwing things on the ground and wiping out half of, y'know, _Europe_.'

OF COURSE THERE IS. HE WAS WAS JUST HERE. I'M SORRY. DEATH was beyond contrite, and too attached to his dignity to let it slide.

'I know. I met him in the street, and he told me you were here.'

Pestilence looked good. Much more ill than the last time they'd met, and in a much more subtle way. He looked like Victorian romantic poets used to look once the consumption and drug use had really taken their toll, but they could still stand up at parties. DEATH said as much.

'Yeah, I know. The future offered so many opportunities! I just had to find them.' Clearly, he'd finished with manic depression. He was as cheerful as Pollution had been.

'Look at me. A human in my place would be dead inside a week. And they'd _still_ be here.' Indeed, there were several of them milling about weakly. 'They're so vain!° They'll be at your very door, and insist they're perfectly fine. Put on a bit of makeup, find a dark club like this, and they're set. It only makes them worse, too.'

The cheerfulness must have been infectious. DEATH found himself grinning. GOOD TO SEE YOU'RE ENJOYING YOURSELF.

'Oh, I _am_. I was right about the immune systems, y'know. They've got to go.'

I'D NOTICED.

Pestilence flushed with pride, or maybe fever. 'I'd hoped you might.' He blew smoke out at the crowd. 'Secondhand smoke,' he said with satisfaction. 'Wonderful, isn't it?'

FUNNY, THAT'S JUST WHAT POLL SAID.

'Yeah. We collaborated on this one.'

CLEVER. ANYWAY, IS THERE A WAY I CAN MAKE UP FOR MISTAKING YOU?

'Oh, you don't need to. It wasn't important.'

HUMOUR ME. YOU KNOW ME: I'LL JUST BROOD ABOUT IT OTHERWISE.

Pestilence laughed, and coughed. A few specks of blood appeared on his lips. ('Lung cancer,' he said proudly, licking it off.) 'Well, we can't have that, now can we? It depends. How?'

HOWEVER YOU LIKE.

'If it were up to you, DEATH,' said Pestilence patiently, 'how would you make it up to me?'

WITH WHATEVER YOU WANTED MOST. WHICH YOU KNOW BETTER THAN I DO.

'Oh, I don't know,' said Pestilence, with a recklessness that only comes with terminal illness or heavy drugs and sometimes both, 'I rather think you know what I want pretty well.'

DEATH raised an eyebrow beneath his cowl. DO I?

He ought to have been trying to change the subject, but was inexplicably happy to let it play itself out. Indeed, he was perfectly happy in general, and that was as odd as anything else. So maybe it _was_ time he pressed the matter.

'Yes. Yes you do.'

DEATH smirked. I'M SURE I DON'T. YOU'LL HAVE TO ENLIGHTEN ME.

So he wasn't exactly _pressing_. At least it was playing out.

Pestilence wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. Humans were used to this kind of thing; he wasn't. He couldn't see the point of beating around the bush when everything was so perfectly obvious. But humans did it this way, and they did this far more often. He clutched at a straw.

Flushing again, and the odds were heavy on the side of it being with embarrassment, he said 'Well... remember the Black Plague?'

HOW COULD I FORGET?

'...Iwasjusttryingtogetyoutonoticeme.'

DEATH blinked, on the logic that if they were playing it that way, then the information ought to have taken him aback, which it didn't, in the least. ME AND HALF OF EUROPE. IT DIDN'T WORK.

'Oh.'

I ALREADY HAD, YOU FOOL. YOU'RE HARD TO IGNORE. NOT THAT I'D WANT TO.

Pestilence smiled. They were both smiling, genuinely, and so was everyone in about a ten-foot radius. This cheerfulness _was_ infectious.°

'I was afraid when I retired you'd all forget about me.

HARDLY.

'That's good. I liked you guys.'

DON'T YOU STILL?

'Well, yes.'

DEATH laughed a little. GOOD. He'd have added _I'D HATE TO BE UNREQUITED_, but he as was neither terminally ill nor on heavy drugs, he had no excuse. Instead, he settled for WATCH YOUR TENSES, THEN.

Pestilence laughed delightedly. 'I like you. In the present tense.'

Grinning, DEATH leaned back on the bar. SPEAKING OF THINGS YOU LIKE, YOU STILL HAVEN'T TOLD ME WHAT YOU'D LIKE FROM ME.

'Well, uh... I think having you would be pretty nice.'

DEATH didn't gasp in shock, and no new hope surged in him. The entire winding conversation was just protocol, really. None of it was news to either of them, and the only embarrassment stemmed from the fact that they both knew they should have given in long before, and protocol be damned. So he only smirked (though of course it was hard to see under the cowl unless you knew exactly where to look, which Pestilence did).

I'M NOT NICE. I'M INEVITABLE.

'Right. Does that mean I don't get you after all.?'

NO. IT MEANS YOU GET ME WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

Pestilence grinned. 'Then it's a good thing I do like it.'

A quarter of an hour later, Pollution wandered back into the club, trailing dust and litter. Reaching the bar, he stopped short and stared. DEATH and Pestilence hadn't moved, save to draw closer together. A cigarette dangled forgotten from Pestilence's palsied fingers, burning slowly, and everyone within about an eleven-foot radius was coughing happily. Pestilence's arms were wrapped about DEATH's neck, and no, there was no denying it: they were snogging wantonly.

And publicly. Pollution took a long, long drag on his cigarette, and when he exhaled, seven people contracted some form of pulmonary disease and the ventilation system clogged up a little bit more. He folded his arms in mock disapproval.

'What d'you kids think you're doing?'

Pestilence withdrew enough to turn his head and speak. He was grinning madly. 'What's it look like?'

MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME, said DEATH. His cowl was down, which amused Pollution, as you rarely got a good look at his face. It wasn't what most people expected. DEATH grinned, and that grin was no less scary for the lack of cowl.

Pollution studied the good cheer permeating the atmosphere. And grinned back.

'Your plan seems to be working, Pest,' he tried conversationally, twirling the cigarette in his fingers.

'Which one?'

Pollution sighed, as though it wasn't asking too much of them to pay attention. 'The one for happy smokers.'

'Right. That one'

WHAT WAS THAT?

Pollution smirked. 'We put some anti-depressants in the cigarettes. So they're happy to kill themselves slowly.'

AH, said DEATH. THAT WOULD EXPLAIN... QUITE A LOT, ACTUALLY. And then he turned back to Pestilence, because their schemes weren't nearly so interesting as the really weird things he could do with his tongue.

After a few minutes, he looked up to see Pollution still there, trying not to stare.

POLL.

'Yes?'

GET THEE TO AMERICA. HOW MUCH TIME DO _YOU_ WANT TO HAVE TO MAKE UP FOR?

Pollution's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Eventually he managed: 'Nothing gets by you, does it?'

NO. NOW PISS OFF.

And then they proceeded to ignore him completely, because the entire length of Creation really is an awful lot of lost time to make up for.

FIN

* * *

°A terribly frightening sight from the right angle.

°I'll bet they think this fic is about them.

°Of course with Pestilence, most things were.

* * *


End file.
